


Various Storms & Saints

by legendofkuvira (jephaway)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, Angst, F/F, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 07:52:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12206991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jephaway/pseuds/legendofkuvira
Summary: If her memory gets bad too, it’s something she’s willing to roll with. It’s about time she was allowed to forget something.





	Various Storms & Saints

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commission for @glowamber on tumblr! I had so much fun working on this piece, and thank you again for the commission!!!
> 
> also, ao3 ate my formatting, so sorry about that. I fixed it as much as I could

**The first time** Lucretia notices something is wrong is when she finds herself sitting around Magnus’s dining room table at poker night. Taako deals and she sits staring blank-faced at the cards in her hand. Her heart pounds against her chest as she slowly realizes she doesn’t remember what her arrangement of cards means. They’ve played poker once a month for the last ten years. Lucretia knows the game as well as she knows herself. Or, she thought she did.

She looks around at the others, hoping someone will clue her in, but they’re all buried in their own hands. 

 

It’s Taako who speaks up. “You good, Luce? Forget how to play?”

“Well, actually-”

“Hey, you leave her alone.” Merle laughs and jabs a finger at Taako across the table. “We’re getting old. You forget stuff when you’re old. Hell, I almost left the house without a shirt on the other day!”

“You live on the beach, old man! You don’t  _ need  _ one!”

“I have sensitive skin!”

 

That gets the table roaring with laughter and Lucretia can hide her flushed cheeks with a hand as she laughs along with Taako and Merle’s banter. Merle was right, anyway. She  _ is _ an old woman now.

 

“Well since  _ some of us _ are old, let’s go over the rules.” Taako finally says, cutting down the laughter. 

 

Lucretia is still flush with embarrassment, but she feels better. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that this is younger than she should actually be. After Wonderland, Lucretia had grieved her youth. She had lost so much time with her friends already, and now she had twenty less years to spend sitting around a table in Magnus’s house playing poker. Sure, Merle was getting up there in age too, but it was different for dwarves. He could have lived those hundred years anyway and not have been too much older.

 

In some ways, Lucretia is grateful that she was finally able to age. It’s permissible for her to go to bed at nine if she wants to, and she can complain with Merle about their aching joints, and she can eat tapioca pudding if she wants to (she  _ doesn’t _ want to, but she  _ could _ ). If her memory gets bad too, it’s something she’s willing to roll with. It’s about time she was allowed to forget something.

  
  


**The second time** Lucretia notices something is wrong, she’s trying to write. The blank space on the page mocks her and she tries desperately to recall a word that simply isn’t there. In her mind’s eye, the image is there. She sees herself clutching an item between her hands as she faces down a massive creature. She feels like smooth wood pressed against her palms, the surge of magical energy moving through her body as she charges a spell and prepares to attack. The tips of her fingers tingle at the memory, like lightning cracks between them. It’s something she held often and kept close. At the bureau, a painting of her clutching it hung above her desk. She held it tight in those final moments inside the Hunger.

 

What was it  _ called _ ?

 

The word is just out of reach, fingertips brushing against it but unable to grasp. She knew what it was up until the point of arrival and thinking too deeply on it turns confusion into frustration. For years it had been her most guarded possession, her authority, her connection to the tragedy that she and her friends played party to. Not being able to remember… 

 

Lucretia rises from her desk and begins to pace in frustration. What was it called?  _ What was it called _ ? Her hands tremble in frustration with herself. What is happening? Before she was Madame Director, she was Lucretia, the Archivist and Documentarian. Words were her passion and profession and now she couldn’t remember the words that had been so close to her. 

 

Was this how her friends felt when they forgot each other? 

 

Is this what she did to Taako and Davenport?

 

Since she was young, Lucretia was the kind of woman who had to have everything in her life under control. In their tumultuous homeworld, there were few things she had control over. Joining the IPRE was one of them. Writing was one of them. She could bring stories to life, control how others viewed them. When they got home, they were going to be  _ heroes _ , not just a ragtag team of scientists and explorers. They were going to discover new peoples and places and bring knowledge back to their world- knowledge that could fix things. The stories wouldn’t be hers, but the words would be. Lucretia could  _ control _ words.

Losing them was something she had never counted on.

 

Lashing out, she knocks her quill and ink to the floor with a cry of frustration. Lucretia sinks into her chair and begins to weep into her hands. Is this some sort of cosmic punishment for everything she’s done?

  
  


**The third time,** it’s Angus who notices something is wrong. Every Wednesday, he brings a new book from the library and Angus reads it to her over tea. Usually, it devolves into reminiscing about their childhoods. Lucretia tells Angus stories about the world with two suns and a pink sky, and in exchange, Angus tells Lucretia about what it was like growing up after the Relic Wars. Neither of them grew up with doting caregivers, and Angus never mentions the story about the night the red-robed woman dropped him off on his Grandfather’s doorstep. Lucretia didn’t need to know that he knew. 

 

His family and his job kept him busy, but Angus always had time for Lucretia.

 

It’s Wednesday, but when Angus arrives at Lucretia’s house, it feels like something’s wrong. The front door is shut tight, the curtains drawn. Usually Lucretia is set up in the rocking chair on the front porch, a cup of tea already brewed and waiting for him. Despite his best judgement, Angus assumes the worst. Lucretia  _ is _ getting older. Something could have happened to her. She could be hurt or-

 

Angus tries the front door. It’s locked. He draws his wand and casts Knock. If Lucretia is in trouble, surely she’ll forgive him. Angus keeps his wand drawn as he enters the dark house, wary of what he may find inside. He steps into the front room, searching for any sign of where Lucretia could be. The house is eerily silent- no creaking floorboards to betray motion. Angus carefully makes his way through the house, combing every nook and cranny for any signs of what happened. There’s no upturned furniture, no signs of forced entry, nothing. As he nears the top of the stairs, Angus hears her- a soft crying coming from her room at the end of the hall.

 

“Lucretia? Ma’am, it’s me.” Angus calls out. He stows his wand as he pushes open the door to her bedroom. 

As soon as the door is open more than a crack, something is hurled at him from the corner of the room and shatters against the door in a flash of light. A spell? 

“Get away from me!” Lucretia screams.

Angus immediately holds his hands up, confused. “Ma’am it’s- it’s just me, Angus. What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I  _ know  _ what you are. I can’t let you take me.” Her panicked voice is cadenced by another shot from her wand. “You killed my friends I can’t- I have to-”

Lucretia fires another shot at Angus and he barely manages to duck out of the way. He slams the door shut, breathing hard. There were things that Angus knew about Lucretia from the Story and Song, including the year she didn’t write at all. She didn’t talk about it, but he had seen the Judges himself. They were from a cycle that there was little writing on, only running.

Angus pulls out his stone of farspeech and calls Lup. She’s in the hall a moment later, stepping out of a rift between the planes. There’s a red robe wrapped around her shoulders. The sight of it makes Angus’s mouth go dry. 

 

“Thank you for calling, dear.” Lup smiles and pats Angus on the shoulder. “It- it’s hard.”

Angus tries to swallow the dry spot in his throat and takes a step out of view of the door as Lup approaches and knocks gently.

“Lucretia, dear? It’s Lup.”

 

Lucretia’s muffled voice calls out from the other side of the door and Lup opens it slowly. Angus’s heart pounds against his chest as he listens to them talk.

 

“Lup? You- they killed you. They killed all of you.” Lucretia’s voice is soft and frail.

“I know they did. I can’t imagine how hard this year has been for you.”

“I had to run. I had to fight, Lup. There was one in here just a minute ago, he was going to kill me.”

 

_ What happened to Lucretia during that year? _

 

“No, dear, that wasn’t one of them. That was Angus, one of our friends. He won’t hurt you.”

“They were going to kill me. I had to fight every day, hide every day. I’ve barely slept, I’ve barely written. I can’t. I can’t keep fighting. You all  _ died _ . The Judges-”

“Lucy, _Lucy_. It’s okay.” Lup’s voice is calm. Angus can’t imagine how she must be feeling. He knew a lot about the year following the missing year. The others couldn’t bear the idea of her having suffered because they all were killed. Just thinking about it makes Angus’s heart ache. How hard was it for Lucretia to be alone after that?

“Lucy. I’m here now. We’re both here now, okay? I’m alive. You’re alive. You did  _ amazing _ and I’m so proud of you.” There’s a soft pause. “I promise I’ll never leave you alone again, okay? I’ll never make you  _ fight _ alone ever again.”

“Lup?”   


“Yes, dear?” 

“I want to go home.”

Lup sighs “Me too.”

A tear slips down his cheek and Angus quickly wipes it away. 

 

**Lup visits Lucretia a lot after that.** They take walks at least once a week, as far as Lucretia’s knees can carry her. Fresh air, Merle had advised, is good for the memory. Sometimes Lucretia knows who Lup is. Sometimes Lucretia thinks they’re young again, and those days are the hardest on Lup. When Lucretia thinks she’s woken up on the Starblaster and starts asking after Davenport or Magnus, Lup plays along as much as possible but every second of it breaks her heart. 

 

They were young together once. They spent a hundred years fighting for each other and loving each other. Lup watched Lucretia’s  _ soul _ weave itself back together. Watching her dear friend grow old has been hard on Lup. In the back of her mind, she always  _ knew _ her human friends would grow old one day, but she had depended on having more time. Lucretia should be in her forties, not her sixties, and she shouldn’t be this sick. It’s a cruel irony, Lup thinks. Someone who caused her friends to lose their memories, losing her memories. It was even, but not fair.

 

“Do you remember that year on the beach, Lucretia?” Lup asks. 

 

Wind sweeps across the hillside and the valley below, rustling the tall grass. The hill they sit on overlooks a winding river and a small town that encircles a plane of glass. Their arrival in this world feels so long ago, and that cycle feels even longer. A beach vacation had been exactly what they needed, but like everything else in their lives, it had ended. Lup recalls the unnamable look on Lucretia’s face as the wind became colder and the sea smelled less salty and the clear blue sky turned black. Brows furrowed, arms crossed tightly across her chest, clutching the painting she’d made of the seven of them. It had been their last truly happy year for almost a hundred years.

 

Lucretia looks up at Lup, that same expression on her face . “Maureen, did Fisher tell you about that?”


End file.
